


Kind Magic

by Schistosity



Series: Other People's Heartache [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider, magic mom comes for Tront's life, minor campaign one spoilers, story at 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22688899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schistosity/pseuds/Schistosity
Summary: “Have you ever heard of the Vollstreckers, Allura?”Allura shakes her head. “I haven’t.”“In Common they are called Scourgers,” he says. He’s watching her for a reaction. Allura is almost sad she has nothing to give him. She shakes her head again.Caleb sighs. “I suppose that’s not surprising. They are… a uniquely imperial problem.”After her conversation with Trent, Allura prepares to leave for Tal’Dorei, but not before she has one more conversation.
Series: Other People's Heartache [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566433
Comments: 36
Kudos: 413





	Kind Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Magic mom finally talks to the magic son about the bad man.
> 
> This is set in a nebulous AU period while the Nein are in Rexxentrum, but probably after Caleb's conversation with Astrid.

The inn the Mighty Nein are staying at in Rexxentrum is quaint, which is not a word Allura would describe many things in Rexxentrum as being.

She steps in from the street outside and shudders into her cloak. The chill of earlier in the week has subsided, but in its wake had come blustering winds she was even less a fan of than cold air.

The interior of the small inn is warm and bright. Flowers sit in lovely ornate vases and lacquered wood lines the walls. The place looks wealthy; Allura is not surprised the Cerberus Assembly had decided to install its guests here.

An elderly woman sits behind a desk at the front of the small lobby, reading a book. Allura approaches and clears her throat.

“Pardon me. I’m looking for Caleb Widogast of the Mighty Nein?” The woman peers up at her with an appraising eye as she speaks. “Is he in?”

The woman hums thoughtfully. “Pretty boy?”

“I suppose… subjectively? Yes?”

“Orc?”

“Oh! Uh, no. He’s human, I believe.”

“Ah… Red hair then? Kinda skinny? Cat?”

 _Cat?_ Allura has no clue what that could mean, but the rest of the description matches. “That would be him.”

“Hm… He’s in the common area,” the woman says, gesturing sharply behind her. “Been at his books all day.”

Allura thanks her and heads farther back into the inn. She enters the common area. It’s relatively empty, with only a few staff hanging around the back.

In the corner though, crammed into one of two plush armchairs around a small table, Allura finds Caleb.

He’s got his nose in a book as she approaches, not appearing to hear her come near. His eyes are flicking across the page at an intense speed, every so often stopping his rapid flipping of pages to pull the quill he has crammed between his teeth out and scribble a small note on the side of one of the pages.

He’s also _surrounded_ by loose papers and tomes, scattered around the low table and floor around him like fallen foliage.

Allura tries to get a good look at the papers as she approaches, but her eye instead catches those of a serene looking Bengal cat, curled atop the papers as if they were a bed. It blinks up at her.

Oh. That’s probably what the woman had meant by ‘Cat’.

Allura clears her throat. “Mr. Widogast?”

Caleb jolts where he sits, spine straightening as if he had just been electrocuted. The action spooks Allura almost as much as her sudden presence seems to have spooked him, and she throws her hands up in a gesture she hopes is non-threatening.

“Sorry! I didn’t realise you were so focused.”

“I-I uh, apologies, Master Vysoren,” he stammers, spitting out the quill and shutting his book with a soft _thump_. “I was—”

He looks down at the papers strewn around him in a halo of organised chaos. The cat yawns.

“—deep in thought,” he finishes.

Allura smiles, remembering many nights at his age she had stayed up doing the same thing.

The “Master Vysoren” does not go unnoticed by her. A week ago that level of specific formality might have confused her, but knowing what she knows now about his schooling it’s not too out of the ordinary. Being referred to like a teacher definitely makes her feel a bit old, though.

“I insist you call me Allura, Mr. Widogast,” she says, trying her best to de-rattle the poor man with a smile. “I’ve never been one to demand formality from friends.”

He blinks a little mutely. “Oh, well, then… Caleb is fine,” he murmurs.

Allura takes a seat in the armchair across from Caleb, careful not to disturb any of the papers strewn about near her feet as she does. She’s aware of him watching her the whole time, but decides not to comment.

_Knowing what I know? Suspecting what I suspect? Do I blame him for being wary of strange magicians like me?_

“I wanted to speak with you, Caleb,” she says.

His eyes flick around the nearly empty room, and Allura watches him become acutely aware that the rest of the Nein are nowhere to be seen. It’s the first time she’s spoken to any of the Nein without the rest being present, and he’s probably realising this too.

He looks nervous. Allura, once again, can’t blame him.

“Should I get the others, or…”

“No need,” she waves him off. “I wanted to speak with you specifically.”

“O-Okay…”

“You’re not in trouble.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t look like he believes her.

The little cat that had been lounging on the papers hops up and wanders her way. Allura holds out her hand for it to sniff, but it just stares at her with oddly intelligent yellow eyes.

“Who is this handsome little thing?” Allura asks. She vaguely remembers seeing the cat at Yussah’s, now that she sees it here, but it had definitely been absent in the throne room.

“Frumpkin,” Caleb says fondly. “He’s my familiar.”

Allura feels her pulse quicken with excitement. A familiar! She’d always thought about getting one but had never quite gotten around to it. It would take some work to manoeuvre such a being through all the wards she worked with day to day, so that particular dream was probably going to have to wait until she retired.

“He’s certainly a beautiful piece of craftsmanship,” she says, petting him gently between his ears. He begins to purr.

Caleb makes an odd expression at that, not displeased, but a little off-guard all the same.

“I have had him for a long time. He likes to be a cat.”

“He’s makes a very pretty one.”

She’s content to pet him for a while, aware of Caleb shifting ever so slightly as she does. She’s okay to wait for him to get comfortable. She’s not here to push the poor man.

He seems to settle eventually. “M—Allura. Is… what can I help you with?”

She stops petting Frumpkin and sits up. “What are you working on?” She asks innocuously.

Caleb blanches, looking incredulously down at his notes like he somehow hadn’t expected her to notice them.

“An incomplete spell,” he admits. “It’s from the Heirloom Sphere. It’s a body transformation spell that I think could be of use to one of my friends.”

“You’re quite a talented young magician, Caleb,” she says, then laughs. “I hope that doesn’t come off as too condescending.”

He looks a little uncomfortable at the praise, but his expression softens.

“I wasn’t at the Chantry, obviously, but I heard about what you did.” Allura tries to be as gentle as possible with her tone. “A modified _Bigby’s Hand_ , I believe? That is certainly impressive.”

Caleb goes a little red. “ _Ja_. Uh, thank you.”

Even though he continues to look uncomfortable, Allura keeps at it. “It shows a wonderfully nuanced grasp of transmutative arts to weave modified aesthetics back into the mechanics of the spell. Especially at the skill level I am gauging you to be at—not to be too presumptuous.”

“That… means a lot. Perhaps more than you think…coming from someone like you.”

He stares at his hands for a moment in silence, still not making eye contact.

“I am—” he stops, looking pensive for a moment, as if trying to find the right word. “I am self-taught, when it comes to transmutation. It was not my original arcane tradition.”

“What was? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Evocation.”

That’s hard for Allura to picture, if she’s being entirely honest with herself. Though magic is, of course, a tool for all kinds, her experience with evocation wizards over the years has crafted an image of them in her mind that she cannot comfortably align with Caleb.

Evocation is the most outwardly destructive of the arcane schools, shaped by raw power and emotion in a way no other magic is. Its practitioners take after their art; loud, vibrant and opinionated people, with personalities matched in their intensity only by their own earth-shattering arcana.

Caleb is quiet. Soft-spoken and gentle. Over the course of their entire conversation, he has yet to make sustained eye-contact with her.

In the throne room he had cowered, like an injured animal. He wouldn’t look at anyone—took up as little space as he could.

But then Allura remembers the report from the Chantry. The tales of Oban’s death spread through the ranks of the guard quickly but, curious for other reasons, Allura had dragged a flustered-looking soldier to the side.

“What of the creature they called the Laughing Hand?” she had asked.

“Burned, milady,” the soldier had said, the memory turning his face pale. “Like a statue, he was—till he was touched, ’course—fell way to nothing. Just ashes.”

Burned from the inside out. Gutted by a fire so hot and strong it had turned every inch of his being to nothing more than ash.

The windows of the Chantry were smashed in. Colourful glass and scorch marks coated the floor. The air smelled of lightning and cooking flesh.

Destruction.

Caleb is quiet, but perhaps it had not always been that way.

“I dare say transmutation suits you better,” she says softly. He surprises her again by actually looking _pleased_.

“I am an abjuration specialist myself,” she continues. “I suppose you could say protection is my passion.”

“I was never very good at abjuration,” Caleb muses.

“Nor I at transmutation. But everyone has their strengths.”

She leans forward, catching a flicker of eye contact.

“What I am trying to say, Caleb, is that I am as good at keeping things away as you are at changing them. Anything we say now will not be heard by prying ears.”

It’s an incredibly pointed statement—not subtle at all—and Allura watches comprehension dawn in Caleb’s expression. His mouth forms a thin, stern line, and his eyes narrow. Not _at_ her, no… this is not anger. This is _focus_.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asks slowly.

“I spoke to Trent Ikithon yesterday.”

Caleb’s eyes widen just a fraction before he schools his expression. “Mm.”

“You’re still not in trouble, Caleb.”

“Okay.”

“First of all I must apologise. I… am perhaps too curious at times. I wanted to know more about your group, so I did some digging. I wasn’t without reason, but I did so without your permission.”

Caleb sits in a stunned sort of silence, and Allura takes it as invitation to continue.

“I must admit I was… worried… about leaving you all at the behest of the Martinet. I feel it is, on some level, my fault you are in the situation you’re in.”

He shakes his head at that, finally finding his voice.

“No, it—this was going to happen at some point. Your actions on behalf of the Bright Queen probably saved us a world of trouble.”

“Regardless, I apologise. It would have been better to ask your consent before offering you up on a silver platter like that.”

He doesn’t comment and nods for her continue.

“I stayed behind to make sure you got away. Call me paranoid, but I am not… the biggest fan of the Assembly.”

Caleb scoffs. “You aren’t the only one.”

“I saw Ikithon speak to you,” she says. “I felt as if I had overstepped a bit, you see, the moment felt very private. But I couldn’t look away. I saw the way you all looked at him and… to say you were distressed would be an understatement.”

The laugh Caleb lets out is weak and mirthless. “That’s… apt.”

“I hadn’t seen you all that fearful before. Not even when we first met.”

“Mm,” Caleb hums thoughtfully. “Fear is not always predictable”

Something in that makes Allura very sad, though she cannot exactly place why.

“I want to apologise for my prying, Caleb,” she says again. “We do not know each other nearly well enough for me to have any right to do what I did. But I was worried for you all when I saw that display. I know how dangerous a mage with a grudge can be, and you looked to have history with him.”

“I approached him yesterday afternoon. I wanted to know how he knew you all, so I confronted him in his office. I asked him what he thought of you all and… I asked him about _you_.”

Caleb’s hands, still clinging to his book, tighten almost imperceptibly.

“He told me he was your teacher,” Allura says softly. “Was that true?”

Caleb nods.

“Was he the one that instructed you in evocation?” she asks. He certainly has the personality for it—arrogant and powerful as he is.

“In part,” Caleb says. There’s something dark behind the words. “That and other things.”

“He pretended not to know you before I sort of… backed him into admitting it,” Allura says, reaching out to pet Frumpkin again, eager to find something to do with the nervous energy in her hands. “He spoke on everyone but you unprompted, but... I think he was hoping I’d let him get away with pretending you didn’t exist.”

“That is not surprising.”

“This is going to be… an extremely invasive question, Caleb, and I’m sorry, but—” she stops, unsure of how to proceed. She meets his eyes for the first time, staring deep into pools of blue. Like Emon’s summer skies, she thinks.

He’s not young, objectively. Humans don’t live long, and Allura guesses he must be in his early thirties at the least. But there’s a light in his eyes that reminds her of a younger thing—a fearful thing. He looks almost like he did in the throne room, like he’s ready to run. That fear is all consuming. She can see it bubbling under his surface, festering and stewing in a heart hardened by some awful thing she cannot yet put a name to.

“Did he abuse you?” she asks quietly. “Did he hurt you while he was your teacher?”

Caleb, if possible, goes even paler.

“It would not be uncommon, unfortunately,” Allura finds herself almost _babbling_. “Power… especially that over young people, can be a poisonous thing to the wrong minds. A-and I know I have no reason other that instinct to think he could have hurt you but… I…”

She sighs, resting her face in her hands.

“I apologise, Caleb. This is incredibly inappropriate, I—”

“N-no,” he says suddenly, surprising her with how sure he sounds. “What were you going to say?”

Allura takes a deep breath and continues.

“Over two decades ago, in Tal’Dorei, a couple from Wildemount gained control of a large supply of residuum in the north through _bloody_ means and kept their power through violence and fear. I believe Ikithon had dealings with them at the time, and that alone is enough to make me distrust him more than anyone else I’ve met here.”

“These people—"

“These people were… abhorrent. Butchers and murderers. They committed atrocities and the fact Ikithon knew them, let alone bought from them—”

“B-bought from them?”

Allura is momentarily caught off guard. The voice that escapes Caleb’s lips is… hollow. Barely more than a whisper but nonetheless commanding in the ache it hides.

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Allura watches Caleb’s shattered expression morph into something stony and hard.

“Caleb?”

“Have you ever heard of the _Vollstrecker_ , Allura?”

He leans hard into the pronunciation of the word, and Allura immediately realises it’s not Common. She assumes it must be Zemnian, then, as there are few other languages spoken by humans here. She doesn’t know what it means.

Allura shakes her head. “I haven’t.”

“In Common they are called Scourgers,” he says. He’s watching her for a reaction. Allura is almost sad she has nothing to give him.

She shakes her head again.

Caleb sighs. “I suppose that’s not surprising. They are… a uniquely imperial problem.”

Now that Caleb is speaking at length, he doesn’t seem to be able to stop. Allura sits back at lets him talk.

“They are a cautionary tale for children,” he explains. “Legends say they are servants of the king, made of shadow itself. The travel along the winds, snatching away misbehaving children and cleaving them apart.”

He grimaces. “Stories change, as you become older. What was once a scary, shadowy monster is now a man. The _Vollstrecker_ are rumoured to be the secret hands of the royal family. Enforcing faith and loyalty through blood and blade. Some believe they have demon blood. Others believe they are immortal. But most… most don’t even believe they exist.”

Frumpkin makes a _mrrp_ sound and hops away from Allura suddenly, dashing over the Caleb’s side. The little cat crawls into his master’s lap, and Caleb buries his fingers in the creature’s soft fur.

“In reality they are… worse,” he says, voice hollow and tired. “Worse in some ways. Better in others. They are not immortal demons, nor are they shadowy cleavers of children. They are an order of mage-assassins, the king’s personal killers; powerful wielders of the arcane that use magic with the finesse an ordinary assassin uses blades.”

“They’re real?”

“Yes,” Caleb nods. “Not many know of their existence. They’re shrouded in legend by design, to obscure fact from fiction.”

“What is Ikithon’s involvement.”

“This kind of killing is… taught.”

“Ikithon.” Allura’s heart sinks as Caleb nods again. “He trains them?”

Caleb smiles sadly. “He trained me.”

The implications hit Allura all at once, like being kicked by a horse. “You—You’re an assassin?” She says incredulously.

Caleb shakes his head. “No. I was just training to be one. I… didn’t complete my schooling.”

It’s a revelation she hadn’t expected—definitely not from someone like Caleb. Her lack of knowledge regarding these people has never been more apparent, and her brain tumbles with a thousand new questions.

But one question in particular is burning behind her eyes. An awful question with an answer she doesn’t know if she wants.

Soltryce was an academy for children… Did that mean…?

“How old were you?” She asks.

“When I began training?” Caleb seems to think about it for a moment. “Sixteen…or, fifteen, maybe. It has been some time.”

Allura feels the world lurch under her. She had been expecting something else—anything else—something besides _children_.

She had been picturing assassins in the most traditional sense. Dark-cloaked rogues. Someone like Vax’ildan, intimately familiar with blades and shadow. Killers, not _children_.

Her voice is a whisper as she says, “F-fifteen?”

“Sixteen is perhaps more accurate,” Caleb says dryly, as if talking about the weather. “Though I believe he began grooming us a fair while before that.”

Allura feels the sudden urge to vomit.

She thinks of the de Rolo children, young and full of life, and tries to rationalise it all.

She remembers Vesper’s sixteenth birthday distinctly. She and Kima had made sure to be there in Whitestone for the occasion; a young lady only turned sixteen once, after all. Her mother had given her a beautiful new bow, of elven make. A weapon, sure, but in the hands of Vesper it had been a gift more than a tool of war.

Allura remembers Vesper’s face—beaming down at the new bow—she had been that awkward sort of half-grown that teenagers were. Her face had borne the new lines of maturity, but her cheeks still held the roundness of childhood. She had been soft around the edges—she had been given that privilege, after all. A child still, given space to grow and _be_ with no expectations thrust upon her other than to live.

A child of peacetime. Something her parents weren’t but had longed to give her the right to be.

Allura looks at Caleb now, at his set jaw and a wetness in his eyes betraying a man trying desperately not to cry. _This is not a child of peacetime,_ she thinks.

She tries to picture him young, like Vesper and the others, and finds it difficult. She cannot quite grasp the true, disgusting enormity of it all. Of the man in front of her, a child himself, becoming a story parents used to scare their children.

A nightmare.

He had been ever so gentle at Yussah’s. Mild and polite when he spoke to her. Intelligent without the condescension Allura had observed in other Empire mages. The way he had spoken to Nott, all soft words and hands, almost too aware of himself.

But perhaps it had not always been that way.

“A-Allura?”

She realises with a start that she hasn’t said anything in a while, and her gaze snaps up to meet Caleb’s concerned one.

“You left them?” she asks. “The _Vollstreckers_?”

He hesitates, and then nods.

“I broke off… when I was seventeen. I did not… There were things we did under his tutelage that I didn’t…” he trails off, pausing for so long Allura wonders if she’s lost him. Then he speaks again. “I reached a point when I could no longer take it.”

She remains silent as the man before her pulls words from somewhere deep inside.

“I was lost for some time after that. I… I disengaged from my life… from the goings on of the Empire. Later I tried to hide from it all—which worked for a time I suppose, though not anymore.”

“Is that why you—I apologise, Caleb—you use a new name? You’re hiding?”

He meets her eyes again, gaze searching. They are still so blue, Allura notes, like cornflowers.

“Records of your name start a few months ago,” she explains. “Ikithon only confirmed my suspicions in our meeting. He said you used to go by Bren.”

Caleb huffs a small, humourless laugh. “ _Ja_ , uh, yes. I did.”

“But not anymore?”

“No.”

Allura looks down at her clenched fists. “I asked you if he hurt you, Caleb. You didn’t answer me.”

“Ikithon did… horrible things,” he says. “But I did horrible things too. There are things I’ve done I will never be able to atone for.”

He’s gripping his forearms through his shirt sleeves, blunt nails on ink-stained fingers digging hard into the fabric and the skin beneath.

“My revenge… if that’s even what I’m doing here… It can wait.” His fingers relax just a fraction. “This war is bigger than me—bigger than Trent Ikithon—and I will work with him if it means saving this continent from destruction.”

“And after?”

“After? Well. That’s a different story entirely. I think it’s a road I must walk alone, if it’s even possible at all.”

Allura thinks back to the Mighty Nein, their faces masks of righteous fury as they stared down Ikithon in the throne room, their hands clasped on Caleb’s shoulders—unflinching.

She thinks he may be wrong. That his path is not a lonely one.

But instead she says:

“You know… transmutation is really a beautiful arcane art.”

Caleb looks up at her, eyes wide with surprise. It hadn’t been what either of them at expected her to say.

“It’s all about the making of things, isn’t it?” she says wistfully. “I wonder what drew you to it? Because that’s what would have drawn me. Conjuration may be the school of creation, sure, but transmutation… Transmutation embodies, more than anything else, the spirit of invention.

“I never had a knack for transmutation myself. I was always fascinated by it, though—watching the intricacies of making and remaking. Of change and reformation. The alchemy and philosophy of it all was _stunning_ , something other traditions are not so tightly governed by. And I think… what better antithesis is there to utter destruction… than that sort of reinvention?”

“I… I suppose,” Caleb murmurs.

“Where the arts of evocation look at obstacles through a lens of destruction and force, transmutation asks if they instead could be changed—moulded into something better. It sees life and use in everything, rather than targets to hit. Transmutation is… kind magic. Forgiving magic. It seeks the best in us.”

Allura gestures to the notes spread across the table, a mixture of complex arcane equations and a foreign language in two different kinds of scratchy, spiralling cursive. One older, one more recent.

There are notes in Common too. Smaller equations and runic circles in small, blocky printing that belongs to neither Caleb nor Halas.

There are doodles on page edges, too… lollipops and dicks tucked onto dog-eared corners and in-between the sweeping lines of old glyphs.

Allura smiles.

“You say this is to help a friend?”

Caleb just nods.

“Then I don’t doubt you will be successful with it. To help. To change ourselves, the world and people around us… is that not the ultimate goal of magic?” She pauses, and that draws Caleb’s cornflower-blue eyes back to hers. “Transmutation suits you well. I’m only sorry it took you this long to find it.”

“You are too kind, Allura. I feel I—we—haven’t done enough to deserve it.”

“It’s been my experience, Caleb, that kindness is not something earned, rather something given. Even so, you all have done much for me and Yussah, someone I hold dear. And your involvement in this conflict—your drive to fix things here in Wildemount—you will shape Exandria in ways you cannot fathom. Tal’dorei’s eyes turn to you.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“It is. But I daresay you’ll be up to it,” she grins. “You actually remind me of another group I used to know.”

Caleb looks amused. “If there’s another group like the Mighty Nein out there I can only apologise to Tal’Dorei’s law enforcement.”

Allura laughs. “They were a bit of a handful at times, but good people. World changers. The kind I see you all becoming.”

“Big shoes to fill,” Caleb remarks.

“That seems to be all I’m doing, doesn’t it? Giving you shoes to fill.”

“It’s not a bad thing. To have goals.”

“No. It’s not.”

The silence that falls over them is calm, and oddly final. Allura decides it’s as good a time as any to take her leave.

“I’m afraid I must be off, Caleb,” she says, getting up from her chair. He follows suit, sending Frumpkin tumbling unceremoniously back onto the table. He doesn’t appear to notice. “Thank you for speaking with me.”

“Thank you, Allura,” he says. “Your support has been… invaluable.”

“I hope so, Caleb. I hope this won’t be the last time I can help you all. If you ever need a favour in Tal’Dorei, I am always there.”

“How about telling us who’s on the Tal’Dorei Council?” Caleb says, with the closest thing to a smirk she’s ever seen on his face.

Allura laughs. “Your companions’ fascination with the identities of the council continues to baffle me.”

“What can I say. We like mysteries.”

Allura readjusts her cloak. “I’ll tell you what. If you ever find time to visit Emon, I’d be happy to introduce you.”

“I think we would like that very much,” he says, clearly meaning it.

Allura nods and begins the somatic motions for _Teleport_ , before Caleb speaks up.

“Allura?”

She turns back to him. “Yes, Caleb?”

“Does he… Trent, he, uh,” he scratches his beard nervously, searching for the right words. “He has a piece of residuum crystal in his office, _ja_?”

Allura raises an eyebrow. “How did you—”

“It’s not decorative,” Caleb says quickly. “As much as he would like you to think it is.”

Something in Allura’s gut twists. Where is this going? “Okay…?”

“It used to be bigger, too.”

 _It’s already huge, though._ That thought alone wracked Allura’s nerves enough as is, nevermind the unspoken implication behind Caleb’s knowledge of it.

“You asked… you asked me if he hurt me,” Caleb says quietly. His eyes are locked on hers, a stark change from earlier in their conversation.

“Yes.”

“He did.” He says it with such surety Allura is momentarily taken aback. “That’s… all I think I feel comfortable saying—”

“Caleb.”

“—for now, at least.”

Allura stares. Caleb smiles a wan smile.

“I hope this isn’t the last time we see each other either.”

He extends his hand to her and she, mostly instinctively, takes it in her own. He squeezes her hand and she looks down, realising only now that at some point over the course of the conversation Caleb had managed to roll his sleeves up, exposing the forearms he had been digging his fingers into earlier.

“I think we’ll have more to talk about when we meet again.”

Half-moon bruises from the earlier scratching pepper his bare arm, but under them sits something more upsetting. Dozens of scars, so small they could almost be mistaken for freckles if not for their silvery appearance, trail up his arm in faint patterns. Small cuts, as if something had been inserted into the soft flesh. Over and over.

Since when had Allura been able to feel her heart hammering in her throat…? Hear her pulse skipping in her ears?

“Goodbye, Allura,” Caleb says, pulling his hand back.

Allura nods slowly. “Goodbye, Caleb.”

She completes the motions of the spell and she is gone.

The sounds of the city of Emon, alive and warm in the early morning, meet Allura’s ears as she appears on the balcony of her home. The change in temperature is immediate, and he instantly begins sweating under her cloak.

Though she’s not so sure it’s all from the heat.

“Oh, Gods above,” she murmurs. “What have you gotten yourself into, Allura?”

“Hey, Allura! Is that you?” she hears from inside. She dashes through the door into the house’s kitchen where she sees Kima, sitting on the countertop with a plate of eggs.

“Kima!” Allura says, relief staining her voice with emotion.

“Hey! I missed you!” Kima tosses the plate aside and hops off the counter, dashing over to embrace Allura.

 _No time, no time_. Allura gives her wife a swift kiss and runs off to the bedroom. She hears Kima squawk indignantly behind her, obviously expecting something more. 

“Woah, hold on, what has you in such a rush?” she asks, trailing into the room after her. Allura is already halfway in the closet, rifling through her clothing.

“I’m summoning the Council,” Allura says, tugging robe after robe out of the closet, looking for the right one.

“That Iki-tron guy got you in that much of a panic? What _happened_ over there?”

Allura finally spots the council robe and pulls it out, sending half her nicely folded wardrobe to the floor as she does. She’s in too much of a rush to care, though.

“Yes,” is all she says in response. “I need to call the Council together now.”

She struggles into the robe, leaning on Kima unceremoniously for help. Kima, bless her, stays still and allows herself to be used as a glorified balance assist.

“That’s not really an explanation…” she says. “But… okay, if you’re not going to explain properly can you at least let me help?”

Allura gives herself a quick once-over in the mirror, checking the lapels were all sitting straight and flat. She whirls on her wife.

“Yes! I’m sorry. Can you do something for me?”

“Sure thing. What d’you need?”

“Can I have the rest of your eggs?”

Kima laughs and rolls her eyes. “Sure.”

Allura kisses her again and runs back to the kitchen, grabbing the plate of eggs and heading for the door. At the last second she turns around.

“Actually, can you do me one more favour?”

Kima nods. “Yeah. Anything. What?”

“Send word to the de Rolos. They’re going to want to hear this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Most of what Caleb tells Allura is either information she could probably find our herself or stuff he’s told the Bright Queen’s court. Of course, he’s not going to tell her he m******* his p****** but his history as a Scourger isn’t something he’s unopposed to telling allies. As soon as she proves to have good intentions he very un-subtly tries to be like "residuum huh? weird. oh an unrelated note check out these fucking scars i have." 
> 
> Probably won’t write any more in this series but the progression of this AU after this is like: Allura, Kima and at least one (1) de Rolo launch a full investigation into Trent under the guise of investigating his ties to the Briarwoods, find out he was experimenting on children, tell King Dwendal, and Trent and half the assembly go to bad wizard prison forever. Then the Mighty Nein visit Emon and Allura takes them out for ice cream.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @fizzityuck, twitter @claregormy, or holding Trent down so Allura can back over him in her Kia Sorento.


End file.
